Visual narratives of environmental change: collective memory and identity at New Zealand heritage sites

Introduction

When humans view themselves as part of the natural world, rather than separate from it, they recognize their responsibility to put the planet before their own selfish needs. In this article, I show that photographic images – through their storytelling abilities – may play an important part in shaping social identities in relation to nature. I do so through a socio-semiotic analysis of historical photographs displayed at public heritage sites in Aotearoa New Zealand, which reveals that these photographs construct national identity in opposition to nature. The photographs build and sustain collective memory of the past that presents 19th-century environmental change as a narrative of ‘progress’. European settlers are visualized as ‘heroes’ who, by epitomizing core New Zealand virtues and values, successfully transformed a ‘howling wilderness’ into ‘productive’ land. The visual narrative thus promotes a strongly instrumentalist perspective on our relationship with the environment, reducing nature to a commodity that can be exploited in the pursuit of human interests.

Although Aotearoa New Zealand seeks to portray itself globally as a ‘green’ and ‘clean’ society, the reality looks very different (Shore, 2017; True, 2005). The country struggles with a whole range of sustainability challenges, including threats to biodiversity, water pollution and methane emissions from livestock, and public opinion on environmental issues is beset with ambivalence. For example, a survey commissioned by the government in 2018 found that only 37 per cent of New Zealanders are either ‘extremely worried’ or ‘very worried’ about climate change; only 35 per cent showed a ‘high’ commitment to do ‘whatever I can to combat climate change’ (Ministry for the Environment, 2021).

This article is structured in three parts. The first section argues that, while scholarship of environmental communication is becoming increasingly aware of the power of narratives, our understanding of visual storytelling remains very limited. I then outline how the methods of social semiotics may help us address this gap. Reflecting the importance that social semioticians place on the wider cultural context when analysing visual imagery, the second part summarizes how collective memory of 19th-century environmental change is intertwined with discursive constructions of New Zealand national identity. ¹ The third part develops a visual narrative analysis that interrogates historical photographs exhibited at public heritage sites in dialogue with accompanying text and government-sponsored representations of environmental history.

Constructing Identities through Visual Storytelling

The literature that investigates the visualization of environmental and climate change highlights two pathways by which photographs shape our responses to the socio-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. First, academic work has investigated how different types of photographic imagery, such as photographs of melting glaciers or alternative energy technologies, affect individuals’ emotions (e.g. Feldman and Hart, 2018; Lehman et al., 2019) and attitudes towards environmental challenges (e.g. Metag et al., 2016; O’Neill et al., 2013). Closely related to these studies of audience effects, scholars have explored how the news media employ photographic images to frame issues of environmental and climate change (e.g. O’Neill, 2020; Rebich-Hespanha et al., 2015). Second, existing research shows how visual representations of climate change – for example, through photographs of polar bears (Born, 2019) or victims of environmental degradation in the Global South (Manzo, 2010; Methmann, 2014) – conceal the fact that the greatest responsibility for human-induced global warming lies with Western industrialized societies. Photographs that perpetuate colonial discourses and silence the voices of marginalized groups condition the space in which we debate solutions to climate change (see also Remillard, 2011): rather than addressing the underlying global structural factors that drive climate change, policy solutions often focus on intervening in ‘less developed’ countries to buffer the impacts of climate change.

While previous academic work has certainly expanded our knowledge of how photographic imagery influences individual and political action on the climate crisis, one important question has not yet been addressed: How do photographs contribute to narratives about environmental change? According to structuralist approaches to narratology, narratives are a specific type of discourse that can be distinguished on the basis of its formal properties. ² At their most basic level, narratives feature (i) characters who do things to one another; (ii) a plot that organizes characters’ successive actions into beginning, middle and end; and (iii) a setting that provides the spatio-temporal background against which the plot unfolds (Robertson, 2017).

Narratives differ from frames. The latter tend to articulate problems and remedies in a rather analytical manner. As seminally defined by Entman (1993: 52), ‘to frame is to . . . promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described.’ Narratives, on the other hand, encourage audiences to relate to the main characters – typically, with heroes and victims – and thus often evoke strong emotions (e.g. Eyerman, 2005: 45–46). Unlike frames, narratives do not affect behavioural outcomes by persuading individuals of the necessity and efficacy of action. Instead, narratives motivate collective action through the mechanism of identity. By telling stories about how they became who they are, social groups and communities create bonds of belonging (e.g. Liu and Hilton, 2005; Polletta et al., 2011). When people – motivated by storytelling – share a common social identity, they come to think and act as group members rather than as isolated individuals; their behaviour will be guided by group norms and beliefs rather than self-interest. In line with this broader understanding of identity, environmental psychologists have found that individuals are more likely to engage in pro-environmental behaviours if they identify with social groups that share ecological goals (e.g. Masson and Fritsche, 2021; Schmitt et al., 2019) or if they identify as ‘part of the natural world’ (e.g. Mackay and Schmitt, 2019; Whitburn et al., 2020).

The environmental communication literature has, in recent years, become increasingly aware of the power of narratives. Not only have scholars mapped the stories that different actors tell about environmental change, but experimental research has generated evidence that narratives play an important role in motivating or demotivating climate action. ³ The question of how photographs contribute to narratives of environmental and climate change, however, remains an empirical blind spot (see Wang et al., 2018: 13). While there are a small number of visual analyses that apply narrative concepts (DiFrancesco and Young, 2010; Kassinis and Panayiotou, 2017; Wozniak et al., 2015), we still lack studies that investigate how photographs – through their storytelling abilities – construct social identities in relation to the natural environment.

Although we have numerous theoretical approaches at our disposal for analysing visual narratives, these theories have generally been developed with a focus on designed and sequential images, such as comics (e.g. Bateman and Wildfeuer, 2014; Cohn, 2013), and are thus difficult to apply to photography. Because of their unique material properties (capturing light particles on a light-sensitive medium), photographs – compared to other forms of visual communication – offer a much smaller repertoire of storytelling techniques. The broader socio-semiotic framework by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) is thus better suited to analysing photographic storytelling than more narrowly targeted narrative approaches. Specifically, the three-level framework helps us understand that, on the level of representation, photographs can be classified as containing either narrative or conceptual information. The narrative type creates action, either transactional or non-transactional, by connecting participants through vectors and visualizes the circumstances in which action is performed, which may include the setting, secondary participants, and the tools used to execute action. Moreover, the representational narrativity of action photographs can be supported through symbolic signs on the interactive and compositional levels of meaning – for example, by positioning the viewer in a way that signifies a particular social relationship with the main participants or by foregrounding certain participants at the expense of others.

Moreover, social semiotics is well positioned to address other limitations of the current literature on environmental communication. As critics point out, existing scholarship – in particular, studies of audience effects and news framing – fails to acknowledge that photographs derive their meaning from the wider communicative context, including accompanying captions and wider sociocultural discourses into which they are embedded, and instead makes the simplistic assumption that meanings are fixed by the image itself (Culloty et al., 2019; Hansen, 2017; O’Neill, 2017).

Socio-semiotic theory recognizes the complexity of meaning making in two ways. First, social semioticians emphasize that ‘communication is always multimodal’ (Kress, 2010: 36); that is to say, meaning in any given message is generally produced through a combination of multiple semiotic modes. Driven by the fact that singular images can rarely be found without any textual context, Van Leeuwen (2005: 229–230) – building on the ground-breaking work by Roland Barthes – proposes a classification of image–text relationships that distinguishes between elaboration (repeating information) and extension (adding new information). The framework further identifies two elaboration subtypes: explanation (the text paraphrases the image) and specification. The latter overlaps with the Barthesian conceptualization of text–image links: in the case of ‘anchorage’, words make the meanings of an image more specific; in the case of ‘illustration’, images make the meanings of words more specific (see Barthes, 1977: 38–40).

Second, social semioticians stress that both the production and the interpretation of images should be understood as social practice, deeply embedded in cultural norms and power structures (Jewitt and Oyama, 2001). The symbolic meaning of visual narrative structures – for example, actions performed by participants – is historically and contextually contingent. Meaning is created through negotiation between image producers and audiences, reflecting the beliefs and values that they bring to the process. Consequently, visual images ought to be analysed in relation to wider discursive practices that construct shared understandings of semiotic resources. As concisely summarized by Thurlow and Aiello (2007: 310), ‘meaning is never to be “found” in any image or visual text itself, but rather in its situated design, production and distribution; it is also to be located in the discourses which contextualize and constitute the image or text.’

The Role of Nature in New Zealand’s Master Narrative

Nation states – as other social groups – engage in storytelling in order to forge a shared identity. Scholarship on collective memory has significantly furthered our understanding of how narratives, because they help create ‘the illusion of an authentic memory’ (Erll, 2011: 78), allow nations to construct and maintain what Anderson (1983) has called ‘imagined communities’. The self-understandings of nations ‘are intimately and intricately connected with the stories they have embraced regarding the path they have traveled to the present’ (Heisler, 2008: 15; see also Liu and Hilton, 2005; Wertsch, 2009). National master narratives, promoted by state authorities through monuments, museums, schoolbooks and other carriers of memory, typically feature a homogenous single protagonist and put forward a monocausal account of historical events; they tend not to recognize ambiguity and controversy (Carretero and Van Alphen, 2017).

New Zealand’s national identity revolves around the image of ‘a small nation punching above its weight’. The rhetorical emphasis on ‘smallness’ serves to imbue the nation with distinct qualities: not only does New Zealand have moral traits (such as trustworthiness and integrity) that larger states lack, but – given its proven record of social and economic progress – New Zealand is evidently also more hard working, resilient and entrepreneurial than larger states (Shore, 2017; Sibley et al., 2011). As in other colonial societies, the construction of national identity is dominated by narratives that represent the European settler majority (Barker, 2015: 39). Narratives of environmental change brought about by European settlers play a particularly prominent role in New Zealand’s process of identity building.

In the national master narrative, New Zealand is described as a land ‘flowing with milk and honey’. The narrative fosters the belief that, when Europeans first arrived in the early 19th century, they found that the rich natural resources were not been utilized to their full potential: Māori, who had settled the islands around 1250–1300, cultivated crop plants in communal gardens but relied mainly on hunting and fishing for subsistence. It was successive European settlers, the narrative continues, who – drawn by the promise of ‘a latent paradise, waiting to be fulfilled’ (Belich, 2007: 300) ⁴ – improved the land for economic development, most importantly by transforming much of the native forest into grassland for grazing sheep and cattle (Brooking, 2021: 109). In particular, after the New Zealand Wars (1840s to 1870s) and the large-scale confiscation of Māori land, the pace of forest and bush clearing accelerated significantly.

This particular representation of the history of environmental change is tightly interlinked with the construction of New Zealand identity. Specifically, it is through the persona of the 19th-century frontier pioneer that the nation is endowed with virtues and values. For one, by emphasizing that converting ‘wild untamed nature’ into ‘richly productive agricultural land’ was a ‘superhuman effort’ (Bell, 1996: 35), the master narrative serves to support a collective self-image that is ‘extremely physical, emphasising hard work, athletic prowess’ (Sinclair, 1986: 13). Moreover, according to the pioneer legend, the work of clearing the forest was a lonely and isolated experience. This not only inspired a ‘creative problem solving’ trait – commonly referred to by New Zealanders as ‘kiwi ingenuity’ or ‘8 wire mentality’ – but it also heightened the importance of ‘mateship’. Early European pioneers ‘were forced to look for solace, encouragement and mutual aid to other similarly isolated men . . . Such relations may have been temporary, but they were intense. To be a mate was to be invested with a certain expectation of loyalty and protection’ (Phillips, 1996: 26–27). Through the voice of the master narrative, which portrays the pioneers as the ‘prototype’ New Zealander, these attributes are projected onto the nation as a whole.

Given that narratives about the conversion of land play such an important role in the construction of New Zealand as ‘a small nation punching above its weight’, it is not surprising that the state invests significant resources in cultivating a collective memory of environmental change. For example, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has, since 2006, hosted a long-term exhibition (Blood, Earth, Fire – Whāngai, Whenua, Ahi Kā) that focuses on the ways in which people have transformed the landscape. In early 2021, the government published a draft secondary school curriculum that places great importance on environmental history, emphasizing that ‘over the course of time, people have changed and been changed by the environment’ (Ministry of Education, 2021: 9). Moreover, the Department of Conservation (DOC) maintains a number of public heritage sites that commemorate the history of environmental change generated by European settlers.

The next section will analyse photographs displayed at three such sites: Karangahake, Waiorongomai and Kauaeranga. While the first two are historical gold mining areas, the latter features remnants of the kauri tree logging industry. All three DOC sites are spaces of significant environmental change and degradation. During the 19th and early 20th century, New Zealand’s mining industry remained essentially unregulated. In particular, after the industry moved into hard rock mining towards the end of the 1800s, its environmental impact worsened significantly. Not only did the growing demand of wood for fuel and construction purposes contribute to the destruction of native forests, but mines also dumped thousands of tons of cyanide-treated tailings into rivers and streams (Hearn, 2013). Meanwhile, kauri trees – prized for construction and shipbuilding – were almost logged to extinction (Wynn, 2013: 129–130). Deforestation caused by European settlers was, generally speaking, an ecological disaster – perhaps most importantly because it resulted in the extinction of several endemic animal species, including 16 species of bird (Craig et al., 2000: 63). ⁵

The three DOC locations were chosen because their close proximity to Auckland – New Zealand’s largest city by a wide margin – makes them popular destinations for day trips, attracting thousands of domestic visitors every year (Department of Conservation, 2019). At each site, visitors learn about the history of environmental change through display panels that feature both images and text (see Figure 1). At Karangahake and Waiorongomai, information panels are dotted along walkways, at Kauaeranga, panels are exhibited in the visitor centre. The panels are the final products of a long creative process that began with the production of photographs in the 19th and early 20th century, and continued – in recent years – with decisions about which images to select from thousands of photographs in historical archives.

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Figure 1.

Visitor information panel at Karangahake gorge. © Photograph: Olli Hellmann.

‘Heroic’ Settlers vs Nature: A Visual Story

Applying a socio-semiotic framework reveals that – by casting European settlers as ‘heroes’ and presenting the history of environmental change as a narrative of ‘progress’ – photographs exhibited at the three DOC heritage sites construct New Zealand national identity in opposition to nature. Four storytelling functions are particularly noteworthy: (i) introducing the characters, (ii) establishing the setting, (iii) developing the plot, and (iv) further defining the characters.

First, photographs encourage visitors to strike an imaginary relationship with the European settlers. Textual components of the display panels provide little information about the settlers’ values and motivations. The most we learn is that ‘travellers from many other places came here to work in the gold mining industry . . . from countries such as Australia and Britain.’ Photographs that capture the work and domestic lives of settlers serve to specify the sparse textual information. For one, photographs help visitors understand that miners and bushmen were not individualistic adventurers in search of quick wealth. The image that goes alongside the ‘travellers’ text at Karangahake captures the construction of a stamper battery (Figure 2, top left). Even though the photograph does not feature unfolding action (and thus no narrative process), the composition – depicting around two dozen men posing in the unfinished building’s timber frame – makes it clear that mining was not a one-man job; instead, the extraction of gold from rock was a collaborative effort. While an adjacent information panel reminds us that the men were employed by companies that ‘kept workers’ wages down and were slow to improve working conditions’, the photograph that illustrates this information – and a longer paragraph on unionization and strike action – shows miners as they leave a trade union meeting in Waihī, a town not far from Karangahake (Figure 2, bottom left). The diagonal vector formed by the dark clothed men – emanating from the town hall building and pointing to the bottom left corner of the frame – creates a non-transactional narrative structure: the miners collectively pull together to take a stand against their employers (not pictured). By projecting connotations of common purpose and solidarity, the photograph thus paints the settlers as a community rather than a mere aggregate of individuals.

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Figure 2.

Top left: Victoria Battery under construction (source: Waihī Arts Centre and Museum); bottom left: striking Waihī miners leaving the union hall after a meeting (source: Waihī Arts Centre and Museum (PAColl-2401); top right: Karangahake butcher’s shop (source: Ohinemuri Regional History Journal); bottom right: Waiorongomai school (source: J.S. Hill collection).

In addition, photographs provide a more specific characterization of miners and bushmen as ‘family men’. Glimpses of domestic life that include women and children – despite not featuring narrative vectors – allow us to see the men not just as workers but also as husbands and fathers: they did backbreaking work not to improve their own individual lives but to feed their families and give their children a better future. The settings of these photographs – for example, a butcher shop (Figure 2, top right) or a school (Figure 2, bottom right) – render the scenes relatable and make it easier for the viewer to identify with the characters.

Second, miners and bushmen are cast as heroic characters by placing their actions against a backdrop of risk and danger. Nature – as the wider physical setting of the narrative – is described as recalcitrant, wild, unpredictable and violent. The information panels are replete with textual information implying that nature posed a constant threat to ‘life and limb’: floods, fires, rock and mud slides, lung diseases, scarlatina and dysentery – the list of potential causes of death for European settlers is long. Photographs provide visual illustrations of these threats. For example, at Kauaeranga, the brutal force of nature is recorded in a photograph of kauri logs floating down a ferocious stream (Figure 3, top left). Despite their size and weight, the logs are easily swept downstream, ending up in a ‘boiling’ cauldron of white water. The photograph leaves no doubt: transporting kauri to the sawmill was a very dangerous job. Similarly, at Karangahake, visitors are confronted with images of flood damage (Figure 3, top right) – striking visual evidence that the work of early European settlers was plagued by frequent natural disasters. These photographs imply that the raw destructive power of nature was ever present.

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Figure 3.

Top left: Floating kauri logs down a stream (source: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, WNS-19220309-33-4); top right: Talisman battery at Karangahake damaged by floods (source: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19100407-4-4); bottom: funeral procession at Karangahake (source: Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/1-003812-G).

While these two images do not generate narrative processes, the photograph of a funeral procession (Figure 3, bottom) presents unfolding (unidirectional transactional) action through a vector that connects the black-clad mourners with the coffin of a dead miner. The textual caption that anchors the visual narrative tells viewers that ‘at least 19 men lost their lives in the Karangahake mines’. In the photograph, nature looms over the settlers in the shape of the dark mountain in the background. Situated against the tall rockface – which stretches beyond the edge of the frame – people and their dwellings appear small and fragile. The composition creates a sense of unease; it appears as if the village is at risk of being swallowed up by the mountain. In short, the photograph paints settlers as brave and courageous heroes both through literal elements (the dead miner) and abstract elements (the dark mountain).

Third, signage at the three DOC sites helps to emplot events into a narrative of ‘progress’. For example, an information panel at Waiorongomai cites a newspaper article from 1883: ‘The result is that a bleak mountain has been converted into a hive of industry . . . A howling wilderness has been converted into a fruitful field for mining enterprises and offers employment for thousands.’ Along similar lines, interpretation text at Kauaeranga states that ‘kauri, king of New Zealand’s timber trees, provided employment through northern New Zealand for over 100 years’.

Although text does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to emploting the narrative, photographs play an important role in allowing visitors to see the three sites not as isolated spaces of economic activity but as fully integrated parts of the national and global economy. At Kauaeranga, textual explanations of how felled kauri trees were transported to Auckland are illustrated with a picture of a boat hauling a raft of logs (Figure 4, left). Despite the fact that the photograph only implies the presence of participants (steering the boat), the vector formed by the billowing smoke creates non-transactional narrative action: the boat is moving away from the viewer and the empty horizon suggests that the logs could end up anywhere in the world. At Karangahake, textual information about the mines’ gold output is supplemented by a photograph depicting a shipment of gold bullion outside the National Bank (Figure 4, right). Vectors formed by the eyelines of the bystanders produce a reactional narrative process. The scene is a far cry from the lives of the settlers in New Zealand’s mining towns: the men wear expensive hats and suits, and the buildings in the background are made of brick, not timber. The photograph implies that gold mined at Karangahake contributed to the nation’s economic development.

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Figure 4.

Left: boat hauling a raft of kauri logs (source: Hocken Collections, University of Otago, 18314); right: loading of gold bullion at the National Bank, Auckland (source: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19020925-11-2).

Fourth, together with textual information, photographs further define the characters. As the master narrative claims, European settlers succeeded in transforming ‘wilderness’ into ‘productive’ landscapes because they epitomized core New Zealand virtues and values: a strong work ethic, ingenuity, and loyalty. These identity attributes run like a thread through the DOC heritage signage.

To begin with, European settler life is described as marked by hard physical labour and challenging working conditions. For example, an information label at Kauaeranga explains that ‘the kauri bushmen lived in the bush for months or years until all the contracted timber had been felled and sent down to the booms. The men worked 10-hour days during the week in all weathers.’ Another panel describes the laborious process for felling a kauri tree: ‘Fall direction was determined by cutting a wedge-shaped cut (a scarf) with an axe. Two men then used a cross-cut saw to cut through towards the scarf. For bigger trees as many as six men were used on longer saws.’ A photograph that illustrates the scarfing step of the process (Figure 5, left) gives viewers an idea of the hard work that was required to fell a kauri tree. The immense size of the trunk makes it seem like an impossible task. Yet, the bushman – armed only with an axe – uses his physical strength and relentless determination to slowly chip away at the gigantic tree. The man’s arms and shoulders form a vector that generates non-transactional action. Meanwhile, at Waiorongomai, a lot of ‘muscle and sweat’ was involved in constructing the ore tramway: ‘removing vegetation, digging out the cutting and laying the tracks’. An accompanying photograph (Figure 5, right) shows two tramway workers posing with their heavy tools. Despite the image lacking narrative action, the triangular wedge of sunlight gives viewers a sense of the men’s physical toil: where there was once a steep slope with thick vegetation, there is now a level track bed.

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Figure 5.

Left: scarfing a kauri tree (source: Hocken Collections, University of Otago, 18237); right: ore tramway at Waiorongomai (source: J.S. Hill collection).

Moreover, DOC signage is packed with evidence of the nation’s ‘problem solving’ spirit. In fact, at Waiorongomai, visitors are promised that they will witness ‘the legacy of New Zealand pioneers’ hard work and kiwi ingenuity’. A particular source of pride is the incline railway system: ‘The most impressive of the three inclines at Waiorongomai, Butlers Incline, is 400m long and rises steeply at 25 degrees . . . At the bottom of Butlers Incline an aerial ropeway connected the tramway to the Bendigo Battery.’ Photographs illustrate these ‘ambitious engineering projects’, helping visitors understand how miners overcame the geographical challenges of the Kaimai mountains. In one image (Figure 6, left) we see the winding gear at the top of an incline. Although the two workers are not engaged in transactional action, the tensioned iron wire suggests that the railway cart – loaded to the brim with ore – is carefully being lowered into the valley.

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Figure 6.

Left: winding gear at the top of an incline (source: J.S. Hill collection); right: building a kauri dam (source: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19211117-40-2).

Information panels at Kauaeranga – as already mentioned earlier – contain detailed information about how felled kauri were transported to the sawmill. The different techniques for getting the logs out of the forest are characterized as examples of New Zealanders’ ingenuity: ‘Often using the materials at hand, these experienced bush engineers used simple equipment such as axes, cross saws, pick axes, and shovels to provide effective solutions for extraction problems’. One method used was the so-called ‘driving’ dam. These dams worked by collecting a large amount of water on fairly small streams. They were then tripped to propel logs – which had been laid in the stream bed – down to navigable water. As illustrated by a photograph exhibited at Kauaeranga (Figure 6, right), the construction of driving dams required skilled craftsmen. To ensure that the dam was watertight, the different parts had to be sawn and assembled with great accuracy. The photograph does not develop narrative action but still captures the pioneer spirit: because resources were difficult to come by, the bushmen had to overcome challenges through creative problem solving.

Finally, European settlers were able to transform the landscape because they cultivated ‘mateship’ and loyalty among themselves. While these traits are also encoded in images that have already been discussed (such as the image of the Waihī miners’ strike, Figure 2, bottom left), they are most pronounced in photographs displayed at Kauaeranga that give us a glimpse of life in the bush camp. The picture of the bushmen honing their axes (Figure 7, left) – the most important tool for kauri loggers – leads us to understand that there was no competition between the men. The bidirectional action created through the many diagonal vectors (arms, axe hafts) tells viewers that the men worked together and shared their knowledge with each other. The bidirectional narrative action in the picture of four bushmen playing cards (Figure 7, right) reveals that ‘mateship’ extended beyond work. Days and nights in the bush could be lonely and challenging. Strong bonds of camaraderie between the men were essential for their resilience and ability to overcome adversity. The accompanying caption anchors this interpretation: ‘Though capable men who could turn their hand to any task, the bushmen shared companionship, isolation, and danger in the steep terrain of the Kauaeranga Valley.’

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Figure 7.

Left: Kauri bushmen honing their axes (source: Western Bay of Plenty Community Archives); right: a game of cards at a bushmen’s camp (source: Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections, AWNS-19221228-38-5).

To sum up, historical photographs of environmental change exhibited at the three DOC heritage sites contribute to the construction of New Zealand national identity: they make 19th-century European settlers relatable, place the characters’ actions in a ‘wild’ and ‘unpredictable’ landscape, emplot events into a story of ‘progress’, and endow bushmen and miners with core ‘kiwi’ traits. Even photographs that do not produce narrative action perform important storytelling functions – for example, by visualizing the setting or by illustrating text in ways that add drama and detail.

The analysis has also made it clear that photographs at the three DOC heritage sites shape New Zealand identity in opposition to the natural environment. According to the narrative encoded into these images, national character was forged as early European settlers ‘tamed’ the land and laid the foundation for subsequent socio-economic advances. By pitting man against nature, the visual narrative takes a highly instrumentalist view of the environment. As elegantly summarized by Plumwood (2007: 251), the basic assumption of instrumentalism is that

all humans, and humans alone, are ends and have intrinsic value, the non-human world being merely a means to human ends. To put it another way, humans need only consult their own species’ interest or convenience in deciding what courses of action to follow. Humans are part of a separate, superior order apart from the rest of nature, and only their concerns can be reasons. Nature has no direct claims of its own that could interfere with or constrain human projects.

In other words, the photographs displayed at the three DOC heritage sites reduce nature to little more than a stock of resources for human consumption; the only purpose of natural resources, such as gold or timber, is to satisfy human needs and economic development. In fact, by suggesting that, prior to the arrival of European settlers, the landscape was a ‘howling wilderness’, the visual narrative renders nature meaningless without human exploitation. It is only through the extraction of resources that nature acquires meaning and significance.

Before concluding, it is important to point out that the construction of collective memory is ‘a dynamic, complex, and often conflicted process in which diverse and at times divergent groups dialogically engage with each other over the present meaning of our shared pasts’ (Houdek and Phillips, 2017; also see Wertsch, 2009). This means that the representation of environmental history constructed by photographs on DOC information panels is open to interpretation, contestation, and counter-memories from societal actors. In particular, we ought to remember that the visual narrative of miners and bushmen represents the European settler majority of New Zealand society; the narrative does not script a role for the Māori minority. Māori communities are more likely to see 19th-century environmental change as a story of ‘decline’. Not only did European colonialism and violent land confiscation cut off access to traditional food sources, but Māori have also been hindered in performing their cultural role of kaitiaki (guardians) of the land. ⁶

Conclusion

This article makes three important contributions to the academic literature on visuals of environmental change. First, the interrogation of historical photographs exhibited at DOC heritage sites shows that, through their storytelling abilities, images may shape identities in relation to nature. Second, by applying a socio-semiotic framework, the article highlights that – when investigating how visual narratives make meaning of environmental change – images have to be examined through multimodal methods and in relation to wider discursive practices. Third, the analysis has demonstrated that, even if photographs depict scenes that are set in the distant past, by sustaining a collective memory of historical events, they can still shape environmental attitudes and behaviours in the present.

More specifically, the article argues that photographs on DOC heritage signage present 19th-century environmental change in New Zealand as a ‘heroic’ narrative of ‘progress’, thereby constructing national identity in opposition to nature: humans are separated from nature and the exploitation of natural resources is celebrated as a testament to ‘kiwi’ character. While this instrumentalist view of nature is unlikely to encourage pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, future research should focus on the question of how visual images may promote collective identities in connection with the natural world. How can visual storytelling help us understand that we are part of nature? What types of images are needed to craft narratives that foster a stronger connection between us and nature? Applying structuralist narrative frameworks to these questions, as I did in this article, would allow us to move beyond interpretivist analyses and generate hypotheses about audience effects that can be investigated through comparative methods, such as experimental surveys or Q-sort.